Blend: Strengthen Your FamilySample

Running Circles

Rockford married April 11 years ago. They have five combined children and a story that’ll encourage any blended family. 

Yesterday you heard from April about the ingredients in our pressure cooker. Here’s what happened next. 

“The attorney will see you now.” I stood up from my seat and somberly walked back into an office I had been in just a few short years earlier. “I can’t do this anymore,” I said to the divorce attorney in the moment that was almost the end of this story. 

I just wasn’t satisfied. Notice the I. My wife, April, and I didn’t see eye to eye. We saw I to I. Raising kids in a blended home was much more difficult than I had realized. I just knew that I wanted to be out of the situation—sooner rather than later. So here I was back at the same attorney’s office from my first divorce. 

Maybe we felt like we had nothing to lose, so April and I both opened up about what we were going through. We started talking, but my heart didn’t change, and I didn’t want it to. 

Just before I dropped my plans for divorce in her lap, April started reading the book The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. We kept arguing, and she kept reading. She started doing what the book said. She started praying and walking circles around our home, asking God to do a miracle. People would ask if she was locked out of the house. I had my own questions. 

One year on the Fourth of July, my wife asked if I’d go walk the track at the kids’ school with her and the family. I decided rather than walk and talk with her, I’d try to run a mile. At 39 years old and nearly 300 pounds, I hadn’t run much of anything lately. 

I began to run away from my wife—or so I thought. A mile later something started to change. Over the coming months I started running a lot. So what? I spent more time running that circle, talking to God, and achieving small goals than I ever had in my life. I began to make choices that put God in the center. 

Something about persevering on the track made my marriage seem possible. Maybe that’s why the book of James makes such a big deal of perseverance. April continued praying circles around our home, and I kept praying circles around the track.  

Prayer can change your marriage because God can use prayer to change you. I became more of a servant to what April needs, and April became more of a servant to what I need. As summer came to an end more than five years ago, our marriage was finally circling around God. Not me. Not April. God. 

Watch Blend: How Do Second Marriages Actually Work?, Part 2

Pray and listen: God, what would it look like to replace worry, fear, regret, pain, and selfishness with more of You at the center of my life? What goals can I go after that will lead me toward You? How can I put You first in my relationships? In Jesus’ name, amen.